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I heard you state that many of the uninformed had fabricated some sort of conjecture about Kabbalah and Eastern traditions, and I can understand how such conjecture is not credible, having seen so much of it on the shelves of new age bookstores. That said – as a student of Eastern traditions for many years, much of what I’ve seen here does, in fact, seem quite similar, starting with the concept of will to bestow/will to receive being so similar to the Yin/Yang philosophy of Daoism, or the Purusha/Prakriti dynamic of Samkyha philosophy in ancienct Indian philosophy. I find this very interesting, and wonder if you might shed some light on this degree of similarity. Thanks in advance for anything you have to share, along with thanks for kicking off my 2023 New Year with the most delightful course I can recall ever taking!
Hi Sharon,
Kabbalists are experts on human egoism. After all, they pioneered Kabbalah, the method of correction of human egoism.
From their research, the Kabbalists discovered that in order to reach the purpose of creation, we need a large ego. The ego is like a tall mountain thanks to which we can climb higher and higher. So the more that humanity advances, the more the ego will grow. And by correcting that large ego, the higher the spiritual degree we will achieve.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
Albert @ KabU
Hi Thomas,
I’m not an expert in other methods, so I cannot comment on that. But in general, most spiritual methods, religions, philosophies, and even sciences in one way or another stem from the wisdom of Kabbalah. Either as a stepping stone for a person to develop through until his point in the heart awakens (such as many eastern traditions), or from an attempt to copy and implement this wisdom (like what early philosophers tried to do, which later on turned into modern sciences), or as a side effect of the concealment of this wisdom (which is how the modern religions and spiritual paths emerged).
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2008/11/the-origin-and-purpose-of-eastern-teachings/
Albert @ KabU
How does studying Kabbalah impact one’s practice of Judaism? It’s not necessary to be a Jew to study Kabbalah, but is there an advantage?
Hi Avi, good questions!
Studying Kabbalah can help you understand how modern Judaism appeared and how to actualize the role of the Jewish people in our days. Let’s put a few things into perspective to understand this:
Kabbalah is the method of correcting our egoistic nature and thereby revealing the Creator, the general force of love and bestowal. The first one to actualize this was Adam. His name gives us a hint at this since Adam comes from the Hebrew word “Dome”, meaning “similar to”. He was not the first one alive, but rather the first one to reveal the Creator by becoming similar to this quality of bestowal.
This wisdom gets passed onward from Adam until Abraham who adapted it to the people of his generation and made the wisdom more practical. Abraham put together a large group of Babylonians who were interested in actualizing this method. These people later on became the Israeli nation. The word Israel comes from the Hebrew words “Yashar” “El” meaning straight to God. These are the people who had an active point in the heart in those days and were interested in revealing the Creator.
These people greatly succeeded in this method. The peak of their success was symbolized in the building of the first and second temple, which reflected the level of unity and bestowal they were able to reach. At a certain point, they lost the spiritual connection between them (the destruction of the 2nd temple) and what remained was just these external symbols of their connection.
At this point the wisdom of Kabbalah became concealed. People still had the holy books, Torah and etc, but they did not know how to use them. Since the Torah is written in the language of roots and branches. Meaning it uses words of our world to describe spiritual phenomena. But if a person does not have this spiritual connection through which he can see this, then he thinks this book is talking about this world, history, morals, commandments, etc. From this emerges the Jewish religion.
From all the above we see that Kabbalah itself is not connected to any religion and that the modern religions came out due to the concealment of Kabbalah. At the same time, Kabbalah is not against religions. In fact we have millions of students worldwide, from many different backgrounds and religions. Many of them do choose to maintain their religion or to perform certain religious customs while studying Kabbalah and there is nothing wrong with that. Just like with any other science, a person can be religious and also be a chemist or physicist. Likewise a person can be religious and also study the science of Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes that even after the full spiritual correction people can still keep their religions.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2015/12/the-wisdom-of-kabbalah-and-the-other-religions/
Albert @ KabU
Hey,
1. In this article you gave to Gabor https://laitman.com/2016/05/dispelling-myths-about-kabbalah-part-4/ it says ” ‘short’ relationship with my Creator.”. what does it mean by short?
2. In the book of “Attaining the world beyond” it says Nature is Creator. can we take this statement literally? If we took it literally is our relationship with the Creator or Nature is temporary?
Hi Barnabas,
1. Short meaning direct.
2. Nature meaning not just trees and animals, but the all encompassing system that we’re in. So our relationship with the Creator is our relationship with the all encompassing system of nature. This system includes all of our thoughts, desires, all of the life events we go through, everything. Through all these things we begin to build a relationship with the Creator and to understand Him.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2017/11/the-concept-of-god-in-kabbalah/
Albert @ KabU
¿Por qué la sabiduría de la Cabalá considera que no es necesario abstenerse de satisfacer los deseos corporales? ¿No es acaso imprescindible cierta condición del cuerpo para acceder al deseo de conocer el sentido de la vida y adherirse al Creador?
google translation of Luis’s question:
Why does the wisdom of Kabbalah consider that it is not necessary to refrain from satisfying bodily desires? Is not a certain condition of the body essential to access the desire to know the meaning of life and adhere to the Creator?
Hi Luis, great question!
The Kabbalistic method is not about suppressing or killing our ego, rather it’s about rising above it. In fact the more we advance, the more our egoistic desires grow. They turn into a type of mountain that we climb over. The bigger the desires, the higher we can climb, and the higher the spiritual degree that we can attain. On the other hand, if we were to eliminate our egoistic desires, then accordingly, we would only be able to attain a tiny degree of spiritual attainment.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2011/02/the-worse-the-better/
By the way, if you prefer to study Kabbalah in a different language, we have courses available in many different languages. Check out this portal site for details: https://www.kab.info/
Albert @ KabU
So, the heart-wrenching desire to move beyond the created world and to touch the spiritual world is a valuable desire to have, according to Kabbalah? It’s wild to think that this desire is something to value, versus something to be suspicious of.
So if I understand this Kabalah is the science of the 6th sence, or the spiritual preception of the realms beyond earth.
Hi Holly,
Yes, you can say that. I would add that Kabbalah is a practical method by which we can correct our egoistic nature. Why do we need to correct our egoistic nature? Because developing spiritual perception depends on the law of equivalence of form. Meaning that in order to reveal spirituality, we need to become similar to it. Spirituality operates on the qualities of love and bestowal, while our nature operates on the complete opposite quality: pure egoism. This is why I would define Kabbalah as a practical method by which we can correct our egoistic nature in order to develop our spiritual perception of reality.
Check out this blog post from Rav Laitman for more details: https://laitman.com/2013/04/everything-is-attained-by-the-equivalence-of-form/
Albert @ KabU
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